For quite some time now Scientists have known that a great way to mess up life on Earth is to have an asteroid impact (just ask our dinosaur friends) but it’s interesting to think that such an event would prevent life from starting up on a planet. Well it turns out that this may be why we never got to have next door neighbors on Mars:
“A giant asteroid could have destroyed Mars’s chances of evolving into an Earth-like blue planet by punching a hole in its crust so large that it damaged the red planet’s magnetic field, scientists have found. Earth’s magnetic field, generated by molten iron moving in its core, deflects radiation that would otherwise blast its atmosphere into space.
Scientists have long been puzzled why Mars lacks a similar field, but measurements from an orbiting spacecraft may have provided an answer. They have found intense magnetic anomalies affecting surface rocks all over Mars’s southern hemisphere. These appear to be remnants of a field that once embraced the whole planet.
Such anomalies are absent from the northern hemisphere, suggesting something happened to change the planet’s magnetic field in the distant past. This fits with another Mars oddity, that the rocks are much thinner in the northern hemisphere than in the south, a phenomenon known as the “crustal dichotomy”.”
“First there was the theoretical Big Bang that got the universe going. Several billion years passed. Then a Little Bang birthed our solar system. At least scientists have long thought that’s how it went, and now they have a computer model to back up the idea that our sun is the product of an explosive event. The new modeling finds that a supernova, or exploding star, could indeed have triggered birth of our sun in a dense cloud of gas and dust, the researchers say.
Stars are born when a cloud of material collapses. Exactly what triggers the collapse is not entirely known. One idea is that most stars, including perhaps our sun, were created in dense starbirth regions when another very massive star explodes, putting intense pressure on surrounding clouds.”
NASA needs a stronger champion, current Administrator Michael Griffin thinks we should return to the moon because it is easy. The irony of this is that JFK picked the lunar mission because it wasn’t easy. Frankly if our only goal is to return to the moon we might as well just give NASAs budget to China as they’re already well on track to doing this now. To me part of the point of NASA is doing what hasn’t been done before — this sort of R&D project allows us to innovate as well as explore:
“NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin defended his agency’s determination to establish a lunar colony before embarking on a manned Mars mission Sept. 30, arguing that those who prefer to focus only on Mars are overestimating what is known about the Moon and underestimating the difficulties of going to Mars.
Addressing the International Astronautical Congress here, Griffin said the U.S. Apollo program spent a total of just 27 working days on the Moon, which he said is as big as Africa and merits substantially more exploration.
Several space agencies, including some in Europe, say their scientists are much less interested in the Moon than in Mars and that, since doing both is beyond their means, are weighing whether to focus on Mars.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 27, 2008 in Science
Shown above is a bit of footage of the first Chinese space walk. I hope this winds up helping NASA, in fact last night during the Presidential debates the space walk was mentioned by Senator Barack Obama:
“It was “a small step by Col. Zhai Zhigang, but a historical leap in China’s space dreams,” the official commentary said, in a deliberate echo of Neil Armstrong’s words as he became the first man to set foot on the Moon. It was clear, the commentator said, that China was a latecomer to the space party compared to the United States and Russia, taking its “starting steps” several decades after its rivals.”
“About half the stars in our celestial neighborhood may have traveled great distances through the Milky Way, according to a new study, which suggests our sun may be one of them. People have generally assumed that once a star forms inside a galactic disk, it stays in a more or less fixed orbit around the center of its galaxy, said lead study author Rok Roškar, a graduate student in astronomy at the University of Washington in Seattle.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 20, 2008 in Science
Look at this damn rock shown above, the newly named Haumea isn’t even round! Yet she’s lumped in there with Pluto which has been sadly demoted from being a planet. Just to rub it in the mythological references for Haumea (Hawaiian goddess of childbirth and fertility) that I couldn’t find any authentic folk art drawings of her — yet she’s placed up there next to Pluto who sports his own Disney mascot: I tell you the International Astronomical Union have no respect:
“After years of dispute, the last unnamed dwarf planet in the solar system has finally gotten a name. It will be called Haumea, after the goddess of childbirth and fertility in Hawaiian mythology. The International Astronomical Union, which announced the new moniker on Wednesday, has struggled with naming the object, because two teams have laid claim to its discovery.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 18, 2008 in Science
Now I’ll grant you that the main function of Moonbase Alpha was to look after the nuclear waste generated on Earth, but this new NASA concept of having a nuclear power station on the moon does remind one a great deal of Space:1999:
“Nuclear power could make a comeback beyond Earth if NASA goes forward with a proposed a fission reactor in its future moon base. A fission-powered system could generate up to 40 kilowatts and give any lunar outpost enough power to supply eight houses on Earth. More importantly, astronauts will require a reliable and steady energy source on the moon and Mars.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Sep 16, 2008 in Science
While NASA is working away at getting back to the moon, China is slowly building up an amazing manned space program with a strong focus. It was only back 2003 that they had their first manned launch, and now by the end of the month they’ll perform a spacewalk on live TV:
“China is gearing up for its third manned spaceflight, set to include its first ever spacewalk, later this month. The three-member crew is not yet named for the Shenzhou 7 mission, due to launch sometime between Sept. 25 and Sept. 30 from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu Province, China, but a spokesman for the launch center told the Shanghai Daily newspaper that preparations were on track for liftoff.”
…It may not happen for a few years but my bet is at this rate China will beat the United States back to the moon. These programs take years to develop and by the time politicians are paying attention it will be too late. Of course it should be said that if the United States, Russia, Europe and China worked together my bet is that we could be talking about landing on Mars instead of going back to the moon (but sadly that is very much science fiction right now).
It’s frankly depressing watching a Vice Presidential candidate who just doesn’t get that “Creationism” isn’t science (well maybe science fiction) — yet that’s just a symbol for the sad state of funding for public education. The last time the United States got serious about teaching science was during the when the Russians launched Sputnik in the late 50s. Well if you’d like to do something about this situation please take some time out and get involved with this effort:
“In the year 2009, the world will celebrate the International Year of Astronomy as it commemorates the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s use of a telescope to study the skies, and Kepler’s publication of Astronomia Nova. 2009 is also the anniversary of many other historic events in science, including Huygen’s 1659 publication of Systema Saturnium.
This will be modern astronomy’s quadricentennial, and the 2009 Year of Astronomy will be an international celebration of numerous astronomical and scientific milestones. Events are still being planned, and you are invited to tell us how you want to celebrate. This page is a product of the U.S. 2009 IYA team, and we want to help you make 2009 a year long celebration to remember.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 30, 2008 in Science
This is scary, I always assumed that our galaxy was just that — a solo act. It seems that part of our galaxy contains smaller galaxies which were torn apart by the Milky Way:
“Astronomers have discovered nearly a dozen new stellar rivers—strings of moving stars—over the disk of the Milky Way. The streams, which seem to represent smaller galaxies torn apart by our own, come from scans of the velocities of about a quarter million stars in our galaxy made for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 24, 2008 in Science
This is an interesting although some what fuzzy article which claims that some Russian scientists think that the work being done at CERN could allow visitors from the future to see what life was like back in 2008:
“Physicists around the world are excitedly awaiting the start up of the £4.65 billion Large Hadron Collider, LHC – the most powerful atom-smasher ever built – which is supposed to shed new light on the particles and forces at work in the cosmos and reproduce conditions that date to near the Big Bang of creation.
Prof Irina Aref’eva and Dr Igor Volovich, mathematical physicists at the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow believe that the vast experiment at CERN, the European particle physics centre near Geneva in Switzerland, may turn out to be the world’s first time machine, reports New Scientist. The debut in early summer could provide a landmark because travelling into the past is only possible – if it is possible at all – as far back as the point of creation of the first time machine. That means 2008 could become “Year Zero” for temporal travel, they argue.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 19, 2008 in Science
Could it be that there are quite a few minor planets wandering around out there on the far edge of our solar system? Astronomers haven’t come up with a real name yet, but this new minor planet called 2006 SQ372 is mostly made of rock and ice. Shown above is a chart of the orbit of 2006 SQ372 which almost seems to just barely dip into our solar system (click on the image to view it at full size). Here’s the full story:
“Astronomers announced today that a new “minor planet” with an unusual orbit has been found just two billion miles from Earth, closer than Neptune. Using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, astronomers detected a small, comet-like object called 2006 SQ372, which is likely made of rock and ice. However, its orbit never brings it close enough to the sun for it to develop a tail. Its unusual orbit is an ellipse that is four times longer than it is wide, said University of Washington astronomer Andrew Becker, who led the discovery team. The only known object with a comparable orbit is Sedna — the distant, Pluto-like dwarf planet discovered in 2003. But 2006 SQ372’s orbit takes it more than one-and-a-half times further from the Sun, and its orbital period is nearly twice as long.
2006 SQ372 is beginning the return leg of a 22,500-year journey that will take it to a distance of 150 billion miles, nearly 1,600 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Scientists believe the object is only 50-100 kilometers (30-60 miles) across.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Aug 17, 2008 in Science, Tech
This 1960 promotional film for the UNIVAC computer is amazing to watch — it’s amazing to think how much computing has changed in just a few decades: Computers have gone from being these large exotic machines to a disposable device that can fit in your pocket.
It may be a pipe dream or a fantasy, but this fanboy would love to wake up one day and find out that there was a breakthrough in warp drive technology that would make interstellar space travel possible in my lifetime:
“It is possible to travel faster than light. You just wouldn’t travel faster than light.
Seems strange, but by manipulating extra dimensions with astronomical amounts of energy, two Baylor University physicists have outlined how a faster-than-light engine, or warp drive, could be created that would bend but not break the laws of physics. “We think we can create an effective warp drive, based on general relatively and string theory,” said Gerald Cleaver, coauthor of the paper that recently appeared on the preprint server ArXiv.org.
The warp engine is based on a design first proposed in 1994 by Michael Alcubierre. The Alcubierre drive, as it’s known, involves expanding the fabric of space behind a ship into a bubble and shrinking space-time in front of the ship. The ship would rest in between the expanding and shrinking space-time, essentially surfing down the side of the bubble.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 31, 2008 in Science
Sadly you won’t be able to swim in this lake as it’s made of ethane which is a liquid solution of methane, nitrogen and other low-molecular weight hydrocarbons:
“Scientists have confirmed that at least one body in our solar system, other than Earth, has a surface liquid lake. Using an instrument on NASA’s Cassini orbiter, they discovered that a lake-like feature in the south polar region of Saturn’s moon, Titan, is truly wet. The lake is about 235 kilometers, or 150 miles, long.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 29, 2008 in Science
It’s still sometimes amazing for me to think that we’ve discovered over 300 planets in the last 25 years — however the start of the search for extra terrestrials won’t be really believable until we find some planets that look like Earth instead of Jupiter. According to this article we may not be closer to find planets exactly the size of Earth, but we may be getting closer to finding more rocky planets which are about five times the size of our home:
“A great new age of the discovery of Earth-like planets has reached the tipping point, according to Harvard Professor of Astronomy Dimitar Sasselov, who heads the Origins of Life Initiative said after the International Astronomical Union (IAU) symposium held this May . “We can say this is the moment where we started the exploration of planets like Earth.” The symposium’s focus was “Transiting Planets,” or the technique of discovering planets by measuring changes in the light of distant suns when a planet passes in front of them.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 28, 2008 in Science
I get excited about stories like this because commercial space travel is exciting, the only down point is the high cost that prevents us middle class fanboys from taking a well deserved vacation in orbit:
“Sir Richard Branson’s dreams of operating the world’s first commercial spaceline will move a step closer today when he unveils his new space rocket. The billionaire will present White Knight Two to the world in the searing heat of the Mojave Desert – ahead of the first proper flight which is expected as early as next year.
White Knight Two will be the mothership, on which a much smaller spaceship will sit until it is projected into sub-orbital space flight at a certain altitude. Designs for both White Knight Two, which is the world’s largest aircraft made entirely from carbon composite, and the smaller SpaceShip Two were unveiled in New York in January.”
…By the way Branson has real class: I understand that one of the two ships will be named Spirit of Steve Fossett after after the aviator who went missing last year.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 23, 2008 in Science
Any old time Star Trek fanboy knows that having a good tractor beam is a must have for any starship — and it looks like science is now catching up: Shown above is an artists conception of a gravity tractor spacecraft that could push a dangerous asteroid out of the day:
“Real-life scientists are actually exploring the gravity tractor, the keyhole problem and other issues surrounding the very real, if remote, danger that a comet or asteroid will some day cross Earth’s orbital path at precisely the wrong time. A crowd of them met this week in Baltimore as part of the “Asteroids, Comets, Meteors 2008” conference sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory.
It’s not an idle concern. On June 30, 1908, astronomers say, a comet exploded over a remote area of Russia with the force of a 10-megaton nuclear bomb. The “Tunguska” impact, as it’s known, flattened 80 million trees over 830 square miles – that’s enough destructive power to devastate a city of millions, had it struck one.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 21, 2008 in Science
While I think that Makemake is easier for kids to remember than minor planet 136472 it’s going to be rough on science students trying to keep track of all of these plutoids — although as an astronomy fanboy I think these are good problems to have:
“A dwarf planet circling the sun out beyond the orbit of Neptune has been rechristened Makemake after a Polynesian god and designated the third of the solar system’s new class of plutoids, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced Saturday. Makemake is a small, red-tinged world that ranks among the largest objects in the outer solar system. But it is still smaller and dimmer than the already demoted dwarf planet Pluto, which astronomers reclassified as a plutoid last month.”
Below: It sucks to be Pluto which is now reduced to being one of eight trans-Neptunian objects.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 19, 2008 in Science
Now you can have the greatest scientific minds in human history collecting dust on your bookshelf!Lord Crumwell’s Oddfellows Scientists Mini Figures includes Marie Curie, Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Nikola Tesla. I think if I had a chance to travel back in time and meet any of these folks it would have to be Einstein as he seemed to have a good sense of humor.
“New observations made by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), currently circling the planet, have revealed evidence that vast regions of the southern highlands of Mars were altered by water in a variety of environments billions of years ago. Water is a key condition for life as we know it. Though there is no firm evidence that Mars has ever harbored life, knowing that the planet was once wet suggests that it was at least habitable in the past.”
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 16, 2008 in Science
I’ve always admired Freeman Dyson from the first time I heard about the concept of the Dyson sphere. In the above video Dyson talks about the idea of looking for exterrestrial life inside of our own solar system. What’s interesting is that Dyson thinks is that we should look on the edge of the solar system — all the way out in the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 14, 2008 in Science
Why are you sitting at home watching Netflicks when there’s a huge ass space station flying above your house? It seems that the next few weeks will be ideal for NASA fanboys to catch a glimpse of the International Space Station:
“If you’re out watching the twilight sky in the time frame from 45 to 90 minutes before sunrise, or 45 to 90 minutes after sunset, you’ll might see a few “moving stars.” They are most likely artificial satellites. The brightest of all is the International Space Station, and this month provides some great opportunities to see it from just about anywhere. During the next couple of weeks, North Americans and Europeans will have many opportunities to see the ISS flying over their homes, due chiefly to a seasonal circumstance.”
That man you see in the photograph above is an international treasure. Under that rejected humble facade is none other than Charles Thomas Bolton who will one day be seen as one of the great astronomers of all time. He was THE first man to discover a black hole:
“In 1972, Bolton made a discovery in astronomy that was so important it guaranteed him a place in the history books: he was the first astronomer to present irrefutable evidence of the existence of a black hole. The black hole in question was Cygnus X-1, which lies at the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Bolton detected its presence by observing star HDE 226868 wobble as if it was orbiting around an invisible but massive companion. His calculations demonstrated that the companion could be nothing less than a black hole.”
So why is one of the best astronomers in the world — a grown man who is 65 years old — crying on the steps of his observatory? After 73 years of the observatory being open the University of Toronto sent Bolton an email informing him that he had 10 days to get get off the premises because the University in their “wisdom” had decided to close the David Dunlap Observatory:
“In November, the university voted to close the observatory and sell it to the highest bidder, and redirect the money from the sale back into the school’s astronomy program. Yesterday it confirmed it has a “firm agreement” with a buyer and it’s looking to close the deal by month-end. It did not disclose the buyer or the price.”
The university used the excuse that the observatory was no longer useful due to light pollution, but this is a lie as the facility is perfectly useful long-term research programs and large survey programs where relatively few observations are taken of a large number of stars. But more shocking than the closure of the observatory is the poor way the university is treating Mr. Bolton. It’s heartbreaking to think that when you’re looking at that photo that they carrying out 37 years of his life’s work. The University of Toronto should be ashamed of their shoddy treatment of a man who is a real life hero.
I’ve spent my life wondering about the barbarians who sacked the library of Alexandria, I always imagined that it’s same primitive minded folks like the Taliban that destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Well what makes this case sad is that the man responsible for this move is David Naylor the 15th President of the University of Toronto who amongst his other honors is that he was a Rhodes Scholar. I’d love to know if Naylor has seen the photo Bolton crying on those steps and if so how he can he sleep at night knowing that he defiled an living astronomical treasure?
